An Overheating Car, Singing a Lease, Losing Glasses
Today's events were pretty funny.
So our new landlord lives in Mill Valley, which is North of San Francisco over the bridge. She wasn't gonna be in San Francisco for a while, so I reserved a City Car Share car for us to drive to meet her at her home. It was a Mini Cooper. We grabbed the car and drove up. This car was the most annoying thing to drive ever - this particular year, 2009, I think. I've driven the earlier years and they weren't so obnoxious. The turn signal lever always returned to 'neutral' every time you used it. I'm used to turn signal levers mechanically staying in place until you either turn the wheel or disengage it manually. This thing only acknowleged that it was signaling by a light and the ticking sound. Incredibly disconcerting. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn off the radio that was blaring when I first turned the car on. And I'm an audio guy. The knob immediately by the radio display did nothing except scan the frequency. Turns out there's another knob above the shifter that controls the volume. Guh. The turn signal lights I mentioned were, from my vantage point, completely obscured by the steering wheel. I had to hunch down just to see them. I'm not an unusual size - about 6' 0" tall. Some of the controls could only be accessed by me reaching my hand THROUGH the steering wheel to the dashboard. Just asking for trouble.
So my impression was not so great.
We sign the lease and return to San Francisco. We're quite fond of taking the very steepest hill we've found in San Francisco yet: Filbert street just off of Van Ness. So we did. When we reach the top of the hill, the car informs us that it is uncomfortably hot. Okay, I say, no more hills. I get the picture. So I take it on the flats from there on. Nope, not good enough. The temperature light goes from yellow to red. So I'm downtown at this point and there's NOWHERE to pull over. Sheryl calls City Car Share and informs them of the trouble. They instruct us to find a legal place to pull over.
I pull over somewhere somewhat legal and turn the engine off to let it cool down. After around five minutes and much honking from other drivers, I turn it back on and drive some more, trying to find a parking spot. A couple of minutes later the car is quite hot, the windshield starts fogging up from the heat. We say 'fuck it' and I pull into a loading dock to turn off the engine. The tow truck has been dispatched at this point and we get out of the car. He tows it away.
Then I realize I left my glasses in the car.
Doh!!
So I have to try to retrieve those in the morning from a car that's not mine at the shop.
Hah.
Not gonna be getting a Mini any time soon, that's for sure.
So our new landlord lives in Mill Valley, which is North of San Francisco over the bridge. She wasn't gonna be in San Francisco for a while, so I reserved a City Car Share car for us to drive to meet her at her home. It was a Mini Cooper. We grabbed the car and drove up. This car was the most annoying thing to drive ever - this particular year, 2009, I think. I've driven the earlier years and they weren't so obnoxious. The turn signal lever always returned to 'neutral' every time you used it. I'm used to turn signal levers mechanically staying in place until you either turn the wheel or disengage it manually. This thing only acknowleged that it was signaling by a light and the ticking sound. Incredibly disconcerting. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn off the radio that was blaring when I first turned the car on. And I'm an audio guy. The knob immediately by the radio display did nothing except scan the frequency. Turns out there's another knob above the shifter that controls the volume. Guh. The turn signal lights I mentioned were, from my vantage point, completely obscured by the steering wheel. I had to hunch down just to see them. I'm not an unusual size - about 6' 0" tall. Some of the controls could only be accessed by me reaching my hand THROUGH the steering wheel to the dashboard. Just asking for trouble.
So my impression was not so great.
We sign the lease and return to San Francisco. We're quite fond of taking the very steepest hill we've found in San Francisco yet: Filbert street just off of Van Ness. So we did. When we reach the top of the hill, the car informs us that it is uncomfortably hot. Okay, I say, no more hills. I get the picture. So I take it on the flats from there on. Nope, not good enough. The temperature light goes from yellow to red. So I'm downtown at this point and there's NOWHERE to pull over. Sheryl calls City Car Share and informs them of the trouble. They instruct us to find a legal place to pull over.
I pull over somewhere somewhat legal and turn the engine off to let it cool down. After around five minutes and much honking from other drivers, I turn it back on and drive some more, trying to find a parking spot. A couple of minutes later the car is quite hot, the windshield starts fogging up from the heat. We say 'fuck it' and I pull into a loading dock to turn off the engine. The tow truck has been dispatched at this point and we get out of the car. He tows it away.
Then I realize I left my glasses in the car.
Doh!!
So I have to try to retrieve those in the morning from a car that's not mine at the shop.
Hah.
Not gonna be getting a Mini any time soon, that's for sure.